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The GOP allowed itself to degenerate into a group of people that agreed to tell each other and believe impossible but reassuring things, until the willingness to believe those impossible things became the sole test of party membership and any who dared to question it were ousted.
That's how they came up with Trump, a man unrivaled in his ability to tell people reassuring but impossible things. A wall, paid for by Mexico? Climate change, invented by China? Free health care for all, with no gov't involvement or funding? Balance the budget by cutting taxes?
Oh, and white men will rule this nation forever. That one too. Some of these ridiculous things meet an emotional need; others quietly serve the goals of the money men funding this charade. And right-wing media enforces ideological conformity much like Soviet political commissars.
As with the Soviets, the political commissars of the ideological right have immense power to overrule those in government. Think Ann Coulter bullying Trump. Think Hannity playing puppeteer to Paul Ryan. Because if that mutual agreement to believe the impossible should falter?
We stand at that brink right now. Their ideological convictions have been reduced over time to just one central thesis to which they all still cling, and that's the glorious infallibility of one Donald J. Trump. If you share that faith, you're in. If you question it, you're out.
Tenaciously, ferociously, they police each other's thoughts and statements, ready to condemn and exile any of their shrinking number who dare to suggest that really, the emperor has no clothes, and furthermore that the emperor without clothes is quite an unpleasant sight.
Because once that faith in Trump is destroyed, what do they have left? To whom or what can they retreat? That is the final delusion, the last remaining glue that holds them together.
